Dr Peter Bruggen2015-08-02T18:28:43-04:00Dr Peter Bruggenhttp://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/author/index.php?author=dr-peter-bruggenCopyright 2008, HuffingtonPost.com, Inc.HuffingtonPost Blogger Feed for Dr Peter BruggenGood old fashioned elbow grease.Satirical Magazine Staff Murdered in Paris - Can Psychology Explain why Satire Provokes Violence?tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2015:/theblog//3.64356822015-01-08T08:19:33-05:002015-03-10T05:59:01-04:00Dr Peter Bruggenhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-peter-bruggen/
There also appears to be a psychological link with the other news story of the day, which has been now overshadowed by tragic events in Paris - the increasing evidence being revealed by the FBI in the US - North Korea was behind the Sony Pictures cyber-attack last year.

Again a punishing response to satire - the film that provoked the belligerent reaction involved a fictional plot to kill North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.

Why did the North Koreans aggressively aim at a movie? Why did the Paris terrorists target cartoonists?

Why do some people seem to find being laughed at particularly threatening?

It's easy just to label such extreme reactions to being made fun of as signs of mental instability. But are there psychological processes involved which could also contribute to calming a cycle of violence?

One consideration is that when people feel especially threatened, they do tend to respond in a particularly hostile manner. The sense of threat shapes their perceptions, plus explains their reactions.

This is the possible conclusion of a recent study conducted by German psychologists based at Philipps University of Marburg, and Friedrich Schiller University Jena.

The research, published in 2013, was inspired by the observation that prejudice and discrimination against Muslims dramatically increased in Western countries after the 9/11 attacks. There appeared to be a tendency for 'authoritarianism' to surge when people feel personally or collectively threatened.

Authoritarianism represents prioritising conformity and security, being more prejudiced and aggressive towards people who are different from us. A classic authoritarian response to terrorist threat is sanctioning torture of suspects, and this is precisely what this new study found.

Also, security agencies in the US mounted a particularly authoritarian response to terrorist threat, in deploying overly harsh interview and detention techniques, often amounting to torture.

The findings of the German study entitled 'Authoritarian reactions to terrorist threat: Who is being threatened, the Me or the We?', are that personal terrorist threat--that is, thinking about becoming a victim of a terrorist attack personally--makes people more likely to act as a member of a group (ie I am a patriotic American/Parisian) rather than an individual person. So conformity, patriotism and nationalism increase - seeing the world more as polarised between 'them' and 'us'.

Participants showed more 'in-group bias' and indicated more authoritarian attitudes and approval of torture as a legal measure, when confronted with personal terrorist threat.

The authors, Frank Asbrock and Immo Fritsche, suggest that the effects of terrorist peril can, at least in part, be attributed to a mounting sense of personal insecurity. Both general and specific authoritarian tendencies increased after asking people to imagine that they were personally affected by terrorism.

The authors of the present study point out that previous research has found that reminders of terrorism (e.g., photographs, proximity of terrorist attacks) increased support for nonspecific authoritarian reactions; for example, more punishment for violations of criminal law, even though these crimes were totally unrelated to terrorism.

Another study found that 9/11 reminders increased support for Bush's war on terror in US students. They found the same effect for reminding the students of their own death.

Frank Asbrock and Immo Fritsche's study, published in the 'International Journal of Psychology', finds that personal threat elicits authoritarian reactions, especially for those who strongly identify with their in-group, ie the more nationalistic or patriotic.

The authors of the study predict that following the Paris shootings the sense of personal threat is going to especially high in France, so people might react in a more negative way toward Muslims now. In particular the contention is that those already highly identified with France - like supporters of political movements such as the Front Nationale - might now react in an especially extreme manner.

Group membership appears to reduce threat experiences, offering raised self-esteem, reducing uncertainty or helping regain control. Does this also explain the spontaneous need for people around the world, but most particularly in France, to gather in city squares to express solidarity with the victims of the satirical magazine shootings?

But that self-same reaction to threat which promotes a 'them' and 'us' outlook, may also have been part of the psychology behind the shooting and similar terrorist outrages.

This German study found that effects of pure personal threat on prejudice against others, and authoritarian attitudes, were only present in people who were already highly identified with their nation.

Dr Frank Asbrock commented in reaction to the murders at the satirical magazine, that being laughed at based on your group-membership, or on an entity which you are highly identified with (like, your nation or your religion), can be perceived as a serious threat. The other group that laughs at you does not take you, nor your group, seriously, and therefore you feel profoundly devalued. In turn, feeling threatened elicits authoritarian, biased, and aggressive reactions which drive terrorist outrages.

It would appear that if we want to understand better why people react so aggressively to satire, we need to understand more the sense of personal menace that may already be involved, and the need to strongly identify with a religion or political movement, in order to stave off feeling endangered.

If we don't grasp this psychology, we are in grave danger of getting trapped in an escalating cycle of aggressive responses, the outcome of which is ever more disaster.

To de-escalate it is necessary to understand more deeply why our enemies feel threatened, as well as ourselves.

The punch-line? We need to re-build a less threatening and more just world, for everyone, where it is safe to laugh again.]]>Is Christmas Killing the Planet?tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2014:/theblog//3.63708982014-12-23T03:34:10-05:002015-02-21T05:59:01-05:00Dr Peter Bruggenhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-peter-bruggen/
Their research into those who are extremely frugal throughout the year, found even these guardians of the ecology are still driven to materially splurge at this time of the year.

They cite a study which contends that giving presents at Christmas is the world's greatest annual environmental disaster.

Carol Farbotko and Lesley Head quote data that Christmas accounts for 5.5% of annual household carbon dioxide emissions, over what amounts to less than 1% of the year. Even in a time of global recession, Christmas spending accounts for about one third of annual retail turnover in Western economies. The authors cite environmentalist concerns that, in an inherently unstable economic system, capitalism is increasingly dependent on the boom of Christmas season consumption.

The study entitled, 'Gifts, sustainable consumption and giving up green anxieties at Christmas', investigated how environmentally aware households cope with the conundrum that a more 'green' Christmas still largely founders in the face of the imperative to 'give good gifts'.

This is despite the quoted figure that if unwanted presents were not bought in the ﬁrst place, the carbon footprint of Christmas shopping would be reduced by 80 kg CO2 emissions per person.

The investigation involved in-depth interviews with members of more environmentally aware families, finding out why, despite their green concerns, second hand purchases or home-made gifts are still frequently viewed as unsuitable and offensive. Even in these green households, newly purchased commercial goods still seem the most suitable gifts.

For example, while families made earnest attempts to use non-commercial gifts, some encouraging their children to donate to charity at Christmas, or sing Christmas Carols in a nursing home, many remained adamant that they 'didn't want a goat for Christmas'. This was a reference to charity gifting programmes in which the giver makes a donation to a developing community, and the gift-recipient receives notiﬁcation that a donation has been made on their behalf, valued at, for example, the price of a goat.

These 'green gifts' were satisfactory to some, but for many they remained disappointing. The study, published in the academic journal 'Geoforum', contends that attempts to encourage a more environmentally aware Christmas, with less consumerism of material goods, founders in the face of the powerful psychology at the heart of gift-giving.

Until environmentalists grasp the true emotional meaning of presents, and the fundamental role they play in maintaining and deepening relationships, they are always going to struggle to reduce the carbon footprint of Christmas.

But as the goal of sustainability becomes increasingly vital, environmental concerns have to impact on giving presents, if we are to save the planet.

This is the nagging fundamental concern that lurks beneath the Christmas tree, yet no one wants to unwrap it, because it challenges such a fundamental part of our social life.

Maybe one solution, the authors discuss, is that we return to celebrating Christmas as it was before the industrial revolution. Then, providing objects that were purchased was frowned upon. Instead, people gave things they had made themselves.

That personal connection with what we offered became threatened by the advent of mass production, so the creators of these new markets had to break down consumer resistance towards buying to give, instead of presenting what we had fashioned ourselves.

Now the time and skill spent making personalised, unique gifts is replaced by shopping for mass-produced items, because capitalists devised various clever psychological tricks to remove the perceived original market 'taint' attached to these impersonal goods.

Enter Santa Claus and gift wrapping paper as psychological marketing tricks which help us delude ourselves that buying stuff cements close personal ties.

According to sources cited by Carol Farbotko and Lesley Head, Santa Claus as a myth developed as a method for removing perceived commercial taint during the festive season. Santa did not use money and was not engaged in proﬁt. In his North pole workshop, he and his elves handmade all of the items that he distributed around the world. He made no trip to the stores to buy the toys.

Santa's motivation for his monumental undertaking was free of commercial considerations. His gargantuan giveaway's only reward was the satisfaction of making recipients happy. No wonder Santa was a valuable decontaminator of manufactured items.

Christmas shopping is therefore an annual ritual through which we psychologically convert commodities into gifts. This ritual ensures we celebrate and recreate personal relations with anonymous objects.

Christmas deceives us that we can create a sphere of familial love in the face of a world of impersonal money.

The authors of this study cite other sources that contend gift wrapping transforms the meaning of a material purchase, turning it from an anonymous impersonal object from a store shelf, into a personal intimate bond between the giver and receiver.

Gift wrapping transforms commodities into gifts.

The industrial revolution required populations moved from the countryside into towns. New urban populations lost the skills and time their rural counterparts possessed in early winter to make things for gifting, particularly Christmas presents. In the case of handmade gifts, time spent in crafting was indicative of the value of the giver's bond with the receiver.

Maybe we can only become truly green by returning to a pre-industrial view; that if we hand make our presents, we are more properly valuing the relationship between giver and receiver.

After all, there is a supreme irony in all that time we have to spend away from our families to earn the money to buy them impersonal items.

In order to save the planet we may need to move away from the marketing delusion that to show your love of family then you have to buy them stuff.

If we don't fundamentally transform Christmas, its spiralling consumerism could end up melting the polar ice caps. A festival said to celebrate the birth of the planet's saviour, could sink it.]]>Does Desire for Revenge Explain CIA Practice of Severe Interrogation?tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2014:/theblog//3.63264122014-12-15T08:08:34-05:002015-02-14T05:59:01-05:00Dr Peter Bruggenhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-peter-bruggen/
An academic psychologist and lawyer may have come up with a possible answer, implicating the psychological state of those who engaged in these practices, which have now been so roundly condemned.

Kevin Carlsmith and Avani Mehta Sood studied a broad national sample of US residents, uncovering the desire for harsh interrogation is closely associated with a yearning to punish. How practically effective harsh interrogation or torture is, appears 'squeezed out' by a stronger desire for revenge.

While the study addressed the lay public's attitude toward interrogation - it might be possible to extend this to the question of what motivated the CIA. These agents may have been 'doubly' motivated by vengeance, given repeated failures in intelligence could be held responsible for successful terror attacks.

This analysis might suggest our intelligence organisations are driven by unthinking emotion, rather than a dispassionate analysis of what actually works.

The authors of the study (the late Kevin Carlsmith was at Colgate University, USA, at the time of publishing the original paper, and Avani Mehta Sood was at Princeton University, but is now Assistant Professor of Law, University of California Berkeley School of Law), conducted their research before the recent revelations over CIA's use of torture.
This means it might have been possible for those responsible for oversight of the CIA to anticipate the intelligence services' flawed strategy, no matter how covert, and prevent it, many years ago.

Their study, published in 2009, was inspired by President George W. Bush vetoing a bill in March 2008 that would have prohibited the Central Intelligence Agency from using ''any treatment or technique of interrogation not authorized by the United States Army Field Manual on Human Intelligence Collector Operations".

The authors point out this bill would have precluded severe interrogation methods such as waterboarding (strapping a detainee face-up on a board while dousing with water to simulate drowning), prolonged exposure to freezing temperatures, forced nudity, sexual humiliation, mock executions, electric shocks, dislocation of limbs, asphyxiation, exposure to attack dogs, application of lighted cigarettes to ear canals, and withholding of food, water, or medical care.

Kevin Carlsmith and Avani Mehta Sood quote that in a radio address broadcast to the nation in March 2008, the President asserted, ''The bill Congress sent me would take away one of the most valuable tools in the war on terror" .

Their study was subsequently published in the 'Journal of Experimental Social Psychology', exploring a theory that those who advocate and defend harsh interrogation techniques may be driven by other psychological forces. They outwardly express the belief that the 'ends justify the means', as did the director of the CIA when recently attempting to defend his organisation, but in fact, it's the desire for revenge, which motivates.

Kevin Carlsmith and Avani Mehta Sood argue that the effectiveness of torture, as measured in terms of genuine intelligence collected, may in fact not be the key issue at all. Instead, much more important might be the desire to harm those who have attacked us (or those who are associated with them), and humiliate those who have made us feel vulnerable.

This need for revenge may explain the American public's scant attention given to the Abu Ghraib abuses during the 2004 presidential election.

Entitled, 'The fine line between interrogation and retribution', this study examined the motives of ordinary US citizens in their support of severe interrogation techniques. Data were collected through an anonymous on-line survey with a broadly nationally representative sample.

Participants were informed that interrogations could range from very mild (asking questions) to extremely severe (''aversive, degrading, painful, and in some cases cause permanent physical and psychological scars"). They were asked to use a scale (from ''extremely mild" to ''extremely severe") to recommend an interrogation severity for a suspect who could be withholding information that might prevent lethal attacks on soldiers and innocent civilians.

The study found that people view severe interrogation methods as an extension of punishment, and are therefore more likely to endorse such techniques when they are used upon someone who ''deserves" to be punished.

All participants were presented with a fictional case study of an Afghani detained by US and Coalition forces on suspicion of terrorism. Participants learned that at the time of capture, the suspect made his living as a shepherd.

Some participants in the psychology experiment were told that Farid had been a member of an extremist Muslim group since his early teen years, had supported the Taliban when they were in power, and had been an active member of the insurgency from 2002 to 2005--during which time he set numerous roadside bombs, attacked civilians who cooperated with Coalition forces, and participated in ambushes that killed four US Marines.

These participants were further informed that Farid had since withdrawn from the insurgency and had had little or no contact with enemies of the Coalition Forces, but had been captured while tending his goats near to a camp of Taliban insurgents.

The results suggest that people use the same psychological system in their heads in making decisions about interrogation harshness and punishment severity.

If the primary motive behind harsh interrogation is to impose on the target his just deserts, then it would be only his history of bad acts, and not belief in the effectiveness of the interrogation, that should matter. And, indeed, this is what the experiment found.

Republican voters, from these results, appeared to experience significantly stronger needs to punish through harsh interrogation, than Democrats do. Republicans generally support more severe sentences for criminal offenses, hence perhaps their backing of more severe interrogation methods amounting to torture. Again a similar psychological mechanism appears to underlie the decision to use severe interrogation, as does the desire to punish.

Kevin Carlsmith and Avani Mehta Sood point out that support for the most extreme form of punishment--the death penalty--has been shown to arise more from revenge than whether it's effective at deterring criminals.

Given that death penalty backing is a way of assessing how driven you are by the need to punish, another study cited by Kevin Carlsmith and Avani Mehta Sood, analysing US public opinion on the 1991 and 2003 Gulf Wars, uncovered evidence that the people's support for waging these wars was linked to favouring the death penalty.

The study entitled, 'An eye for an eye: Public support for war against evildoers', and published in the journal 'International Organization', found the need to punish, and death penalty support, were related not only to backing invasion of Iraq, but also to approval of bombing near civilians, feelings of pride, and indifference to the Iraqi people.

When the electorate feels threatened, strong emotion kicks in, which politicians, the military and intelligence services can possibly exploit.

This psychology explains why war and torture have always been so puzzlingly difficult to reason against, no matter how evidently pointless, destructive and counter-productive they are.]]>'Accounting' for CIA Torture and Kidnapping - Accountants Reveal the Secret Business Behind Brutalitytag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2014:/theblog//3.63042022014-12-10T16:10:46-05:002015-02-09T05:59:01-05:00Dr Peter Bruggenhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-peter-bruggen/
Aspects of CIA abduction and cruelty were revealed by mundane accounts which accidentally came to light, when two of the subcontractors for the CIA's privatized rendition fights went to court over a contract dispute.

An analysis of these financial records is published in the academic journal, 'Critical Perspectives on Accounting'.

Michele Chwastiak's investigation is entitled 'Commodifying state crime: Accounting and ''extraordinary rendition'''. It starts during the Vietnam War, where the CIA used an airline, 'Air America', which it owned, for secret missions.

However, by the modern era, supposedly covert operations, like ''extraordinary rendition,'' had been essentially privatized.

The CIA had started outsourcing the flights to private companies, hiring DynCorp, for the privatized rendition flights. DynCorp subcontracted with Sportsflight, an airline broker, who in turn hired aircraft from Richmor Aviation, a privately owned luxury jet charter service.

But in 2009, Richmor Aviation sued Sportsflight in civil court over a billing dispute. It is the paper trail generated by the case, which reveals how business became complicit with the CIA scandal now dominating headlines around the world.

1,700 pages of court files, including contracts and flight invoices, were released into the public domain. Michele Chwastiak points out that, while the US government routinely invokes the ''state secrets privilege'' to dismiss court cases filed on behalf of the victims of ''extraordinary rendition,'' the state did not intervene in Richmor Aviation, Inc. v. Sportsflight Air, Inc.

Apparently, Michele Chwastiak notes, the public release of invoices, containing details of rendition flights, was viewed as so tedious that they could not be a threat to national security.

On December 31, 2003 Khaled El-Masri, a German citizen of Lebanese descent, embarking on a holiday to Macedonia, was detained by law enforcement officials at the border, who confiscated his passport and held him incommunicado for 23 days in a hotel. On January 23, 2004 he was rendered by the CIA to Afghanistan.

The CIA stripped, hooded, shackled and sodomized El-Masri with a suppository while in Macedonia, subjecting him to abuses including total sensory deprivation, solitary confinement, forced feeding, physical assault, sleep deprivation and inadequate food and water in Afghanistan.

Officials eventually realized they had abducted an innocent man, yet, his unlawful detention and inhumane treatment continued for two more months. On May 27, 2004 El-Masri was released from the ''Salt Pit'', and flown to Albania and then home to Germany.

While Aero Contractors performed the rendition flight from Macedonia to Afghanistan, Richmor Aviation completed the reverse rendition, flying El-Masri from Kabul to a military airbase in Albania.

In May, 2006 the US government succeeded in having a court case dismissed which was brought by the American Civil Liberties Union, against the aviation corporations that supplied the aircraft and personnel used in the unlawful transfer. Allowing the case to proceed would apparently jeopardize state secrets.

Another American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit implicated Jeppesen Dataplan, a subsidiary of Boeing, contracted by the CIA to arrange logistics required for a rendition flight: landing clearances, flight plans, crews, hotel rooms, and catering. The ACLU filed this lawsuit on behalf of five victims of extraordinary rendition.

Once imprisoned they were subjected to torture such as scalpel cuts to the penis, electric shocks, sleep deprivation, and beatings. The ACLU argued that Jeppesen, in providing services to the CIA, knew that the Plaintiffs would be subjected to forced disappearances, detention and torture.

They used as evidence an article written by Jane Mayer in which a former employee of Jeppesen claimed that Bob Overby, a managing director, stated at a meeting, ''We do all of the extraordinary rendition flights--you know, the torture flights. Let's face it, some of these flights end up that way''.

In addition, the ACLU provided evidence that Jeppesen submitted ''dummy flights'' to various aviation authorities in Europe to conceal the flight paths of the rendition planes.

Abu Omar, an Egyptian national with refugee status in Italy, was abducted by the CIA in Milan. Richmor Aviation completed the final stage of the rendition to Cairo, where he was taken to the Torah prison compound and tortured. Placed in a cell with no light or windows, he was subjected to extreme changes in temperature, hung upside down and given electrical shocks, including to his genitals.

After four years in prison, in February 2007 an Egyptian court ruled his imprisonment unfounded and he was released.

Given that Richmor Aviation transported Abu Omar to Cairo, according to the Italian courts that convicted in absentia 23 US citizens, almost all CIA operatives, for kidnapping Abu Omar, Richmor abetted kidnapping.

Richmor initially entered into a six month contract with Sportsflight that guaranteed payment for 250 flight hours, whether or not the hours were used. When Richmor billed Sportsflight for $1119,650 for the unused hours, Sportsflight refused to pay, and this led to a court case.

Nowhere in the court documents do representatives of the aviation companies express remorse for aiding kidnapping and torture.

Indifference to the plight of the detainees was exemplified in an exchange that occurred in court. When Mahlon Richards of Richmor was asked, ''Who or what was Richmor transporting in the Gulfsteam IV aircraft?'' he responded, ''We were transporting government personnel and their invitees''.

But former CIA operatives have testified that prisoners being transferred by plane to secret locations are hog-tied, stripped naked, photographed, hooded, sedated with anal suppositories, placed in diapers, blindfolded, shackled by hands and feet, not allowed to use the toilet, and on some occasions are required to lay flat on the floor with hands cuffed behind their backs.

These were the government's ''invitees'' Richards referred to.

In December, 2012 the European Court of Human Rights found that El-Masri's abduction and detention did amount to an ''enforced disappearance,'' and that the CIA's treatment during the rendition constituted ''torture,'' both violating the European Convention on Human Rights. The court awarded El-Masri EUR 60,000 for damages.

Michele Chwastiak concludes firms such as DynCorp, Sportsflight, Richmor and Jeppesen not only aided and abetted state crime, but also profited from it.

Abu Omar's abduction and rendition to Egypt for torture converted into a bill totalling $138,389.70 for a flight that went from Washington to Ramstien, Ramstein to Cairo, Cairo to Shannon, Shannon to Washington.

Michele Chwastiak quotes the impact of all this on Abu Omar, who now lives in Alexandria, is jobless and taken care of by his family.

In an interview with Amnesty International, as reported by Michele Chwastiak, he stated: 'I can't walk alone in the street. I expect to be kidnapped again, to face fabricated charges or even to be killed... My prison experience has changed my life ... I am always afraid, and suffer from health problems, tension ... I do not want to see or receive visitors. All night long, I suffer nightmares, and all day long I remember torture so I shake...' .

Shortly after taking office, President Obama ruled out prosecutions against those involved in the ''extraordinary rendition'' program, stating it is a ''time for reflection, not retribution'' and ''we need to look forward as opposed to looking backwards''.]]>'Don't Hate Me Because I'm Beautiful' - When Beauty Is Bad for Youtag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2014:/theblog//3.62485102014-12-01T10:55:59-05:002015-01-31T05:59:01-05:00Dr Peter Bruggenhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-peter-bruggen/
This is part of a wider phenomenon by which women appear to attract stereotyping about their personality and job skills, according to their looks.

The study was partly inspired by an infamous incident when in April 2012, Samantha Brick, a writer, published a column in 'The Daily Mail' newspaper titled, ''There are downsides to looking this pretty: Why Women Hate Me for Being Beautiful.'' The subsequent backlash and media criticism reflected the widespread opinion that the massive beneﬁts of physical attractiveness probably far outweigh any possible disadvantages.

The authors of this new study, Stefanie Johnson, Traci Sitzmann and Anh Thuy Nguyen, point out that physically attractive women are probably particularly discriminated against when applying for jobs seen as more masculine - this would include jobs in construction, for example, as opposed to, perhaps, working as a receptionist.

This phenomenon is known within academic psychology as the 'beauty is beastly' effect, and reflects a tendency to stereotype women according to their looks. This involves often unconscious yet powerful assumptions about what work women will be good at, or not, based solely on appearance.

The authors of this new study quote examples of where women who violate their gender roles in the workplace are characterized as the opposite of the female nurturer--as the 'quintessential 'bitch'' who is not at all concerned for others, but only about herself. For example, studies have shown that successful female managers are perceived as abrasive, untrustworthy, selﬁsh, pushy, bitter, quarrelsome, deceitful, and devious.

This new study titled, 'Don't hate me because I'm beautiful: Acknowledging appearance mitigates the 'beauty is beastly' effect', involved a series of experiments setting up a mock job selection where participants were told that they would be evaluating four ﬁnalists for a job in construction. This industry was picked as representing a more 'masculine' type of job in which physical attractiveness is theoretically unimportant. The authors of the study contend that being a more attractive woman in this situation should elicit the infamous 'beauty is beastly' effect.

The experiment investigated whether they were tactics that women could adopt when applying for jobs which could help overcome stereotyping they might face over appearance and gender.

One strategy in this predicament is to find a way to openly 'acknowledge' what the interviewer might be thinking.

In a previous experiment, which partly inspired the current study, mock-job interviews were set up in which an interviewee was in a wheelchair, and either acknowledged or did not acknowledge his stigma. 'Acknowledgement' as a tactic in this case took the form of the statement, 'When people meet me, one of the ﬁrst things that they notice is that I use a wheelchair.'

The experiment found individuals who face prejudice against them were more likely to be hired when they acknowledged their disability.

'Acknowledgement' as a tactic in the current experiment was achieved by altering the response to a question regarding why the applicant should be hired. One group of applicants 'acknowledged' their physical appearance by saying in the application, 'I know that I don't look like your typical construction worker, but.. '. Elsewhere in the application another statement was inserted to the effect: 'I know that there are not a lot of women in this industry, but...'.

The results of the experiment were that the physically attractive applicant performed signiﬁcantly better when she acknowledged either her appearance, or sex, compared to when she did not. The physically unattractive applicant performed signiﬁcantly worse when she acknowledged her appearance, yet there was no effect of acknowledging her sex.

The attractive and unattractive women were substantially above and below the average on ratings of physical attractiveness made by 204 college students.

One theory is that acknowledging one's appearance and sex interrupts automatic stereotyping - it gives the female applicant a chance to point out that she does have the ability to do the job and allows the perceiver to make a more substantive evaluation of the job candidate.

The study found that when an attractive female applicant acknowledged her appearance, she was perceived as higher in masculine traits required to succeed in construction. Furthermore, she was rated as lower in 'bitch like' traits associated with successful women in a male world, than when she did not acknowledge her appearance.

It is of particular significance perhaps that the 'acknowledgement' tactic reduced discrimination against attractive women among raters scoring high in hostile sexism.

This is particularly important as 'hostile sexism' is not uncommon and relates to resentful attitudes toward women, such as seeing them as competitive, manipulative, devious, and threatening to men. As a result 'hostile sexism' evokes particularly negative reactions when women violate their gender role, such as when women pursue careers outside the home. If the acknowledgement strategy was a significant antidote to 'hostile sexism', then this is a vital finding.

Another key result from the study is that the unattractive applicant was rated signiﬁcantly worse in terms of suitability for the job, when she acknowledged her appearance.

This shows that 'acknowledgement' as a strategy has to be used skilfully, for example, a previous study found that acknowledging obesity resulted in more negative ratings in an employment context, and another study found that acknowledging race resulted in more negative evaluations of Barack Obama in the 2008 election, among the highly prejudiced.

The authors of the current study argue that the beneﬁts of acknowledging a stigma are enhanced when acknowledgment occurs early in the social interaction, and when it is accompanied by hard information that contradicts the stereotype in question.

The 'acknowledgment' strategy, in this study, published in the academic journal 'Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes', seems to result in more negative repercussions if someone is not as physically attractive as she believes.

The authors conclude that individuals should possess accurate self-perceptions (for example about appearance) before using acknowledgment to reduce the negative effect of prejudice.]]>Charles Manson's Marriage - Why Women Marry Murdererstag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2014:/theblog//3.62302942014-11-27T03:37:59-05:002015-01-26T05:59:01-05:00Dr Peter Bruggenhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-peter-bruggen/
Because he is serving a life sentence, the two are not allowed conjugal visits.

Manson orchestrated a group of followers who went on a murder spree that took place between July and August 1969. They killed actress Sharon Tate, who was 8½ months pregnant and married to movie director Roman Polanski, but was stabbed multiple times as she begged for the life of her unborn child.

This phenomenon of women becoming drawn to and even eventually marrying infamous killers is well known.

Sheila Isenberg proposed various intriguing psychological theories in her book "Women Who Love Men Who Kill"; she interviewed 30 women who were married to Death Row inmates. She contended that such women had been abused in their earlier lives, so that a relationship with a man behind bars becomes, paradoxically, perhaps the safest possible relationship.

Sheila Isenberg suggests that marriage to notorious serial killers - like Charles Manson - also offers some women suffering from low self-esteem, the thrill of fame. Perhaps a killer's notoriety provides a sense of worth. The bigger the impact of his crime, the more important she feels.

Charlyne Gelt, a Californian psychologist, has studied in depth 26 women, who started relationships with prison lifers and death row inmates, after they were incarcerated.

Her study was not of high profile mass murderers, such as Charles Manson, a crime which is relatively rare. Gelt's research has been published as a book entitled 'Hades' Angels', probing the hidden forces behind such a magnetic draw and demystifying destructive relationships.

Dr Gelt found these women were often successful, educated, nurturing and confident, not fitting the popular stereotype of being 'dysfunctional'. They experienced, in their view, genuine love and emotional intimacy from the prisoner, and this was the first time they had such attraction. Many of the women explained that when they met the prisoner, they had the sense of connecting with their soul mate.

Dr Gelt argues that all the restrictions in prison to physical contact seem to unintentionally contribute towards an even more intense previously unmet intimacy. She proposes that some women are driven by strong unconscious forces to fix or save a criminal from their flaws, because this is one unconscious way of dealing with a childhood emotional wound within the women themselves.

Dr Gelt contends that the prison environment, may in some way, even replicate the emotionally charged, sometimes dangerous atmosphere of these women's early childhood family environment.

Others will argue that becoming apparently indispensible to someone who is completely dependent on them, just perhaps like a baby, means that this very primitive drive in some women is how they become healed from a childhood trauma.

Perhaps these women are often 'groomed' even from prison, or seduced, by the imprisoned men's apparent vulnerability, and the prisoners can be very manipulative, explaining that the case against them is flawed, which brings out the maternal and rescue instinct in some women.

Micael Dahlén and Magnus Söderlund from the Stockholm School of Economics propose that murderers can be idolised and found attractive precisely because of their homicidal behaviour.

Their study, published in the 'Journal of Social Psychology', is titled, 'The Homicidol Effect: Investigating Murder as a Fitness Signal' - 'Homicidol' being a merger of 'Homicide' and 'Idol'.

Micael Dahlén and Magnus Söderlund point out that surveys find 91% of men and 84% of women have had vivid fantasies about killing someone, and that human beings probably have an evolved adaptation for carnage, because in our ancestral environments the ability to commit murder could be considered one kind of genetic or evolutionary 'fitness', in terms of survival.

In ancient times murder could enable acquisition of rivals' territory, sexual access to a competitor's mate, protection one's own resources, cultivation of a fierce reputation deterring mobilization of enemies, and prevention of interlopers from mating with one's partner.

If the ability to commit murder is a kind of genetic fitness, Dahlén and Söderlund tested a prediction that a murderer is perceived by modern observers as a fit competitor and, thereby, as an attractive partner. This is because our brains evolved to survive in ancient conditions, not in those of the much more recent modern world.

In two experiments a total of 460 subjects rated their perceptions of a person, where half of the descriptions included information about a committed murder in the form of one single sentence: "some time ago, John (Jane) murdered a person."

The extraordinary study found that killing enhanced observers' attitudes toward, and even inclination to interact with a person. Opposite sex observers were found more inclined to associate benign intent with the act of murder, such as thinking that the homicide was not the person's fault.

Micael Dahlén and Magnus Söderlund point to numerous examples of the 'Homicidol Effect'.

Amanda Knox became "Foxy Knoxy" with teens everywhere and received fan mail from across the globe after she was accused of murdering her room-mate in Italy in 2007; the "Japanese Cannibal" Issei Sagawa, who after committing a high-profiled murder in the 1980's launched a career as a popular author and TV talk show host; and Charles Manson inspired musical artists such as Guns n' Roses (who recorded one of his songs) and Marilyn Manson (who took his name).

But Russil Durrant, from the Institute of Criminology, University of Wellington, New Zealand, points out that the evolutionary psychology idea that we somehow evolved to kill is problematic.

In his study entitled 'Born to kill? A critical evaluation of homicide adaptation theory', Russil Durrant argues that amongst many problems with the theory, is the question of just how common killing was in our evolutionary past.

His analysis, published in the journal 'Aggression and Violent Behaviour', quotes figures that globally, approximately 520, 000 people are now victims of homicide every year. Based on data for the United States, the overall current annual rate of homicide of about 5.6 per 100,000 individuals, translates to a lifetime risk of being killed of approximately 1 in 225.

From that perspective, maybe homicide doesn't seem that rare an event.]]>British Opinion Polls Reveal a Dramatic Decline in Impact of the Bible on the UK - Does This Spell the End of Christianitytag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2014:/theblog//3.58707862014-09-23T17:54:59-04:002014-11-23T05:59:01-05:00Dr Peter Bruggenhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-peter-bruggen/
The overall emerging picture is that household ownership of the Bible has slumped, readership of the Bible has declined (with only around one in ten reading it at least weekly and three-quarters less than once a year, or never).

The study, just published in the 'Journal of Contemporary Religion', also found that knowledge of the content of the Bible is decreasing, only a small and dwindling minority believes the Bible to be true, word for word. Key storylines in the Bible--Creation, Virgin Birth, gospel miracles, Resurrection--are being progressively rejected as historically inaccurate.

The analysis, published by Clive Field, from the Universities of Birmingham and Manchester, included as well 35 national and local sample surveys of adult religious populations.

Entitled, 'Is the Bible Becoming a Closed Book? British Opinion Poll Evidence', the investigation suggests one interpretation of this mass of data might be that Christianity is becoming 'de-coupled' from the book on which it is founded.

Opinion poll surveys representative of the general population began in Britain in 1937, with the launch of the British Institute of Public Opinion (later Gallup Poll), which first covered the Bible in a question in 1938: "What book of all you have read impressed you most?" The Bible was mentioned by 16% of interviewees.

Since then there have been 123 national sample surveys of the adult general population, conducted between 1948 and 2013, where the relentless decline of the impact of the Bible on the UK population is documented.

In the first national polls from the 1940's and 1950's, nine-tenths of homes possessed a Bible, but this has since decreased to 79% in the 1990's, reaching a low of 52% in 2010.

In a fairly recent poll of 2004, individual Bible ownership was: men 56%, women 72%, 18-24s 39%, 65+ 85%. Protestants were significantly more likely to own a Bible than were Roman Catholics.

The number of Britons claiming to read the Bible at least weekly has fallen from 16% in 1973 to 9% in 2010.

Asked about the town in which Jesus was born, just under three-quarters named Bethlehem in the most recent polls, a drop of over 10 percentage points from the previous decade. During the 1990s, around two thirds could name the angel said to have told Mary she was with child, while in 2007, 27% did not even know the messenger was an angel, let alone his or her name.

Only 26% knew that Mary was engaged (not married) when she discovered she would give birth to the Son of God. Four polls in the 1990s put awareness of the Resurrection on Easter Day at two-thirds, but the proportion fell to 55% in 2000, and 48% in 2004.

In 1973, 56% proclaimed belief in 'Bible truth', but, by 1982, just 27% described the Bible as God's message to all mankind, and 21% accepted all the stories in the Bible as true. Even 18% of definite believers in God struggled to give credence to much of the Bible. Men were more likely than women to argue the Bible is untrue (38% versus 22% in 2008).

The account of the creation in Genesis is now widely rejected in favour of evolutionary theory. Back in 1968, 80% of Britons contended God had created the universe and 62% still believed this in 1987; at the other end of the spectrum, just 32% subscribed to the theory of evolution in 1973.

But over the last two decades God (and thus the Bible) has been marginalised. Two-thirds to four-fifths now accept that human beings have developed from earlier species of animals, while believers in the so-called young earth creation theory (that God made human beings in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years) fell from 29% in 1995 to 20% or less in the most recent polls.

Doubt about the New Testament similarly manifests itself in the matter of the miracles described in the gospels as performed during Christ's lifetime. In 1968, 70% agreed these definitely or probably happened, yet by 1987, this was down to 54%. Four polls between 1984 and 1996 reveal that only around one-fifth considered the miracles historically true, fewer than regarded them as legends, and fewer still than as interpretations by gospel writers.

The Welsh were more inclined to believe that the miracles really happened.

Approximately one-half of the British believed in Christ's Resurrection during the 1990s and early 2000s, but the latest figures from 2012 and 2013 are down to 31%, with 44-47% not believing and 22-25% uncertain.

The personal significance of the Bible has also been in dramatic decline. The Bible is now deemed far less important than a daily newspaper, while for around one-half of adults and two-thirds of under-25s, it now has absolutely no significance in their personal lives.

Whereas, in 1982, just 29% said that the Bible did not influence their lives in any way, by 2010, the number claiming it helped shape their lives was 21%.

In 2010, only 19% considered that UK politics would be improved if more MPs read the Bible; 76% disagreed, including 84% of 18-24s.

The lowest levels of 'Biblecentricism' are to be found among the youngest cohort of adults (aged 15-24) while the highest level is among the over-65s.

Clive Field, the author of this, the most comprehensive analysis of opinion poll data to date on biblical belief, suggests that, short of any future widespread conversion of the young, or perhaps people taking up religion as they get older, all the 'Bible indicators' (eg ownership, belief, personal significance) will continue to decline, as the older generations die out, and are replaced by today's youth.

If the Bible is seen as essential to Christianity, and at the heart of Christian belief, then this research is possibly predicting the relatively imminent demise of Christianity as religion in the UK.

Perhaps the rise of science is linked to the fact that it never tied itself to any one book, but instead adhered to methods for knowing the truth, such as experiments, which keep being refined.

Maybe in order to survive, Christianity will need to tear a leaf out of science's pages? Could it be saved by a similar shift?

But does this inevitably involve a dramatic split away from the Bible being at the centre of this religion?]]>Pride Comes Before a Fall - Are Scots too Proud?tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2014:/theblog//3.58340422014-09-17T04:22:47-04:002014-11-16T05:59:01-05:00Dr Peter Bruggenhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-peter-bruggen/
But is it possible that excessive nationalism could damage Scotland?

If this is the case, and a major academic study suggests this might happen, then paradoxically the Scots could end up being self-destructive, because of a wave of nationalistic pride.

The authors of the study, Pelle Ahlerup and Gustav Hansson, from the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, investigated whether excessive nationalism could harm a country.

They note that while promoting nationalism aims to improve cooperation and cohesion amongst citizens, it might have several downsides.

After all, the West is generally nervous of the excessive nationalistic pride of someone like President Putin.

Excessive patriotism could encourage less understanding and reduced acceptance of other cultures. Stronger nationalistic sentiments can be associated with more distaste for imported goods, producing a more protectionist attitude, leading to an insular approach to trade and the putting up of barriers. This in turn reduces competitiveness and longer-term growth, damaging trading and the economy.

Nationalistic sentiments are used by wily politicians as a quick fix for a community's woes (hence perhaps Putin). But patriotism might not be a true cure for a nation not at ease with itself. Instead, argue Pelle Ahlerup and Gustav Hansson, it could become part of the disease of troubled states.

Their study, entitled 'Nationalism and government effectiveness', measured the level of national pride in the population across the globe from the World Values Survey.

This survey has, since 1981, conducted detailed public opinion surveys of beliefs and values for a broad cross section of countries. It includes a specific question asking respondents how proud they are to be of their nationality.

'Government Effectiveness' was also assessed in this study, and is a World Bank Governance Indicator combining a large number of different measures, such as how satisﬁed people are with infrastructure and bureaucratic delays.

The findings include that people on average across the planet seem to be more than 'quite' proud of their country. The lowest scores for nationalist pride are found in Germany, Taiwan, Japan, The Netherlands, and Russia (hence perhaps Putin's nationalistic strategy for courting popularity). The highest scores are in Egypt, Venezuela, Morocco, Iran and Puerto Rico.

The US is not far behind the highest scorers on national pride, while the UK is a bit behind the US, yet ahead of France on national pride. France, with its slightly lower levels of nationalism, is closer than the US or the UK to the optimum level of national pride, in terms of positive effect on a country.

Of relevance to the Scottish Referendum, the study found that countries across the globe with less historical experience of an independent and sovereign state apparatus, often indicating younger countries, are more likely to boast prouder populations.

The research, published in the 'Journal of Comparative Economics', found that nationalism is a positive force for better Government effectiveness at low levels of nationalism, but it transforms into a malign influence at higher levels of nationalism.

The stronger the pride of being a member of it, the more important the welfare of the nation will be in the eyes of voters, and the more they will accept the authority of the government given that it is seen to rule in the interest of the nation. And the more altruistic citizens will act towards other nationals. But the downside is there will also be a stronger tendency for xenophobia and scepticism toward outside ideas, techniques, and goods believed to violate national traditions.

Economists argue that external openness to trade, ideas and practices, exerts competitive pressure and innovation which leads to adopting sounder policies. Governments can afford to be less efﬁcient if free from foreign pressure, and electorates in more closed countries become less aware of the relative weaknesses of their politicians.

Excessive nationalism may reduce levels of openness, so reducing the disciplining pressure of outside competition.

Nationalism is also associated with a more unquestioning acceptance of the state. Voters with a sentimental attachment to their country tend to uncritically support government policies. They are more likely to reject national criticism, and tend not to take actions associated with better monitoring of ofﬁcials, associated with more efficient state functioning.

The purpose of this study was to assess the effects of nationalistic sentiments on the ability of governments effectively to formulate and implement good policies, for a wide cross-section of countries.

The researchers concluded that there is an inverted 'U-shaped' relationship between nationalism and government effectiveness.

In other words, if the Scots are excessively nationalistic, this could be bad for them in the long run.

Of relevance to the Scottish debate, Pelle Ahlerup and Gustav Hansson argue that a strategy designed to create, strengthen, or sustain a sense of national unity must be one of the most dramatic policies conceivable.

It affects how people view themselves.

Having whipped up national fervour in Scotland, it's possibly a bit hypocritical of politicians to then decry the passion they have provoked, when it threatens to veer out of control.

When asked what are the implications of their research for Scottish independence and the referendum, Pelle Ahlerup and Gustav Hansson declare they would not go so far as to definitively assert that Scotland currently has a damaging level of nationalism. After all, their results also suggest that the level of nationalism in the population is higher than optimal for the economy, in most countries.

But is it particularly too high in Scotland now? That is something they contend cannot deduced from their findings. Rather, an interesting question: Considering excessive nationalism can lead to dismal outcomes, is the level of nationalism in Scotland at such a dangerously high level, or are the Scots in peril of approaching such a risky peak?

Nationalism is not neutral - too little or too much are not good for anyone.

In some ways, by politicians on all sides raising the nationalist temperature, the real danger of this vote is that Scots have already lost from the referendum, whichever way it swings.]]>Can Psychology Explain What Happened Between Oscar Pistorius and Reeva Steenkamp?tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2014:/theblog//3.58098642014-09-12T07:58:38-04:002014-11-12T05:59:02-05:00Dr Peter Bruggenhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-peter-bruggen/
The judgement appears to hinge on possible motives behind the tragic events. The verdict may therefore continue to be hotly debated, and there might be an appeal.

Was this a terrible accident, or a pre-meditated act, and was there an important background consideration of possible serious problems in the relationship?

Research from Columbia University in New York, examining the massive disparities between black and white homicide rates in the USA, suggests a crucial psychological consideration.

South Africa suffers, by international standards, from relatively high homicide rates, and is in the top ten of countries with the highest homicide rates worldwide.

This context is important to understand the central argument mounted by Brendan O'Flaherty and Rajiv Sethi in their study entitled 'Homicide in black and white', which points out that in the United States, African-Americans are six times as likely than white Americans to die at the hands of a murderer, and roughly seven times as likely to murder someone.

The study, published in the 'Journal of Urban Economics', goes on to point out that young black men are 15 times more likely to be murdered than young white men, in the USA.

Brendan O'Flaherty and Rajiv Sethi argue that any satisfactory explanation must take into account the fact that murder can have a 'pre-emptive' motive: people sometimes kill simply to avoid being killed.

As a result, disputes can escalate dramatically in environments perceived to be dangerous, resulting in self-fulﬁlling expectations of violence. This in turn might explain, some of the dramatic racial disparities in rates of murder and victimization in the USA.

Their argument may also explain a key missing ingredient to understanding the Oscar Pistorius trial.

Given South Africa has an extremely high homicide rate, the argument would be: with a higher expectation of being killed, people are more likely to pre-emptively respond violently. High homicide rates generate vicious, violent, spirals upwards.

Pistorius' defence may have hinged on suggesting that his violent response arose out of terror from an apparent intruder in his house.

Whatever anyone may think about his performance in the court, or on the witness stand, this study suggests that in order to understand this killing, you need to grasp the wider psychological context.

Brendan O'Flaherty and Rajiv Sethi point out in their study that homicide is the second most important reason for the racial gap in life expectancy in the USA: eliminating homicide would do more to equalize black and white life expectancy, than eradicating any other cause of death except cardiovascular disease.

Brendan O'Flaherty and Rajiv Sethi contend that this extraordinary concentration of homicides in the black community in the USA cannot be fully understood, without recognizing that murder is a crime for which there is usually a powerful 'pre-emptive' motive: people can kill simply to avoid being killed.

This is the case in war, the authors point out; and is also the case in some urban war zones.
Brendan O'Flaherty and Rajiv Sethi consider a central puzzle at the heart of much homicide and the key enigma in the Oscar Pistorius case; ordinary people in normal circumstances have little or nothing to gain from killing others, so high murder rates occur only if some are killing for self-protection.

The logic of their argument is that the more unsafe the environment, the more likely is an inhabitant to kill. The level of hazard is itself fuelled by the levels of perceived danger or fear. Murders make for tension, and in jumpy circumstances people may be quicker to murder.

This study was in part inspired by a branch of economics and psychology referred to as 'game theory': much of life involves being in an interactive predicament with at least one other person, referred to as a "game". To play games well, you need to take the other person's perspective - how would I react if I did this, as opposed to that?

A key idea that inspired this study is that incomplete information about the preferences of others can result in 'pre-emptive' killing, even when both disputing parties prefer peaceful resolution.

The eminent American Economist Thomas Schelling famously used game theory to explain how nuclear annihilation could be an inevitable outcome of a Cold War, even if neither party desired it. From his book 'The Strategy of Conflict', published in 1960, comes an example that appears remarkably relevant to the Oscar Pistorius predicament:

"If I go downstairs to investigate a noise at night, with a gun in my hand, and find myself face to face with a burglar who has a gun in his hand, there is a danger of an outcome that neither of us desires. Even if he prefers to just leave quietly, and I wish him to, there is danger that he may think I want to shoot, and shoot first."

Brendan O'Flaherty and Rajiv Sethi found evidence in their study, published in 2010, to support their central proposition that murder can be 'pre-emptive'- driven by the fear of being killed. Those whose own deaths are less likely to be investigated vigorously (Black people in the USA) will as a result have more fear of being killed, and may therefore be more likely to kill pre-emptively.

This means that social groups with high victimization rates will also have high murder rates.

An interesting implication of this analysis, pointed out by the authors, is that if crimes involving black victims were to be more aggressively investigated and prosecuted: (1) black murder and victimisation rates would fall, (2) pre-emptive killing between blacks and whites would fall, and (3) white murder and victimization rates would fall.

What you end up believing about the Oscar Pistorius trial, hinges on your view of who, or what, he supposed was behind that bathroom door, and what was reasonable to consider, given the circumstances.]]>As a Dream Predicts Lottery Win, and Malaysian Airlines Passenger Posts Eerily Prophetic Picture - Can Dream and Visions Foretell the Future?tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2014:/theblog//3.56050682014-07-21T07:29:22-04:002014-09-20T05:59:07-04:00Dr Peter Bruggenhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-peter-bruggen/
The boss of a Turkish restaurant in York, England, bought the winning lottery ticket following a vivid dream experienced by his superstitious employee, predicting the win.

Judge Mark Gosnell's ruling followed a protracted legal dispute between the two men as to whom the prize money belonged to. The Judge's final decision, that the jackpot had to be split by the boss with his waiter, partly turned on a premonition.

It is reported that the waiter dreamt that he was holding a large bundle of cash and standing in front of him was his boss. Being a strong believer in the power of such visions, the dreamer interpreted this to mean that he and his boss would scoop the lottery.

The following day the waiter apparently "pestered" his boss for hours, before the restaurant owner finally agreed to enter the EuroMllions draw.

The judge examined CCTV footage from the restaurant which showed the two men filling in the winning ticket, and ruled in the waiter's favour, accepting the dream explanation was "plausible".

While anecdotal reports of dreams predicting the future abound, Parapsychologists are interested in scientifically testing whether foretelling the future might be possible.

For example, a paper entitled, 'An ostensible precognition of the Arab surprise attack on the Day of Atonement, 1973', published in 1986 by Gilad Livneh, in the 'Journal of the Society for Psychical Research', presented just such a compelling case. A letter to Israeli Prime Minister, Golda Meir, was discussed in which a woman reports her vision about an Arab attack, two weeks before the actual event took place.

While accurate prophecy was a plausible explanation, however, the author also conceded that chance coincidence could not be ruled out, due to the inconsistency of certain details between the dream, and the actual event itself.

Caroline Watt, Natalie Ashley, Jack Gillett, Megan Halewood and Rebecca Hanson from the Department of Psychology, University of Edinburgh, have just published one of the most recent systematic studies on prophetic dreams.

These authors report surveys showing that around one quarter of the population believes in the ability to foretell the future, while about one third report 'precognitive' experiences (precognitive means literally fore-knowing).

The authors also point out the scientific and public importance should some dreams indeed turn out to be reliably prophetic. For example, if such precognitive dreams contain trustworthy information, it might be possible to warn of forthcoming disasters, or even to prevent them from occurring.

This has particular resonance right now given a Dutch passenger feared dead, is recently reported to have posted a photo of the Malaysian Airlines Jet he was boarding, destined to crash in the Ukraine, with the message: "if we disappear, this is what the plane looks like".

Caroline Watt, Rebecca Hanson and colleagues point out that following the Aberfan disaster the British Premonitions Bureau was set up in London, and in the USA the Central Premonitions Registry was established. Both appear to have faltered partly due to an insufficient number of predictions that could be related to specific incidents.

Linking an incident which has now happened with a prior dream could merely be a tendency to see patterns facilitated by the benefit of hindsight.

In another past study reported by the authors of the latest research, participants were asked to document their dreams upon awakening, and then to mail a copy to the researcher. The dreamers were asked to notify the investigator if they noticed any events occurring that corresponded to their dreams. In one series, it was judged that only two out of 265 dreams (over an 8-week period) appeared 'moderately' prophetic.

Caroline Watt, Rebecca Hanson and colleagues' current paper, entitled 'Psychological factors in precognitive dream experiences: The role of paranormal belief, selective recall and propensity to find correspondences', investigated the part of selective recall in prophetic dream experiences. Participants read two diaries, one purporting to be a dream diary, and one claiming to be a diary of incidents in the dreamer's life. The events either confirmed or disconfirmed the reported visions.

A significantly greater number of confirmed than disconfirmed dream-event pairs were recalled by participants taking part in the experiment, possibly indicating a human tendency to see connections over unconnected happenings.

The authors argue that their research, published in the 'International Journal of Dream Research' in April 2014, explain the seeming coincidence between dreams and events that can be interpreted as prophetic.

Two possible psychological mechanisms - selective recall and propensity to find correspondences seem to lead us to experience many more dreams apparently foretelling the future, than may genuinely exist.

These explain the discrepancy between the dearth of scientific support for prophetic dreams, compared with the rather frequently reported experience in the general population, of having dreamed about a seemingly unpredictable future event.

Psychologists Gergo Hadlaczky and Joakim Westerlund from Stockholm University have published a study in 2011 which argues that how surprised you are by coincidences could predict how likely you are to end up believing in phenomena such as parapsychology and the supernatural.

The study entitled 'Sensitivity to coincidences and paranormal belief' and published in the journal, 'Perceptual and Motor Skills' exposed participants to artificial coincidences, who were asked to provide remarkability ratings. Those who were more surprised, when experiencing coincidences, tend towards higher paranormal belief (beliefs such as in telepathy etc).

The most obvious explanation for many coincidences is 'just chance'. Tending to be more surprised by coincidence suggests a tendency to reject the 'it's just chance' account. For example, there will be some who put it down to just chance that two Malaysian Airlines Jets should suffer catastrophe in a short space of time. Others will be much more surprised.

It's possible that a tendency to be more shocked by coincidence simply betrays poor probability reasoning. But it could also have positive survival value in an evolutionary sense. Being more paranoid may mean seeing patterns in what others assume are random events.

Being more astonished by coincidence, could have made you more vigilant for threat in our ancestral environment, more paranoid, and therefore more able to detect and defend against predators in our ancestral past. We could be genetically wired up to be surprised by coincidence.

But paranoia and surprise by chance is only helpful if it leads to an actual action that then produces a positive outcome. The passenger reported to have posted the prophetic internet message about the Malaysian Airlines Jet due to be flying over Ukraine, apparently still did board the plane.

The recent lottery-winner case appears an excellent example of a kind of quasi-scientific proof that dreams can foretell the future, because the person who had the dream then engaged in an action the next day as a direct result - persuading his boss to buy a lottery ticket.

Yet if the waiter in the most recent legal judgement ruling was so convinced by his prophetic dream - why did he not take more precautions to safeguard his claim to the win?

Why did he not foresee that sharing the ticket purchase with his boss was going to lead to a protracted legal battle?

Depending on how you interpret it, this could become an example of how dreams or visions don't really predict the future.]]>Can You Completely Forget Who You Are? As a Man With Almost Total Amnesia Grabs the Headlines - What It Reveals About Ustag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2014:/theblog//3.55773062014-07-11T08:15:06-04:002014-09-10T05:59:05-04:00Dr Peter Bruggenhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-peter-bruggen/
They are now appealing to the public for help, in the hope that someone might recognise him.
'Robert' is reportedly suffering from an upsetting and very severe case of amnesia where he cannot recall any details of his life, including his own name, age, where he is from; or his job.

One key clue is that although 'Robert' (a name given to him by hospital staff) speaks English, his accent seems to be eastern European, and he also appears to understand some Lithuanian and Russian.

Similar cases, which could explain this mysterious incident, include a clinical case report, published in 2010, entitled 'Running towards a different life: A case of Dissociative Fugue', by Dr M. Santos and Dr E. Gago from Hospital Magalhães Lemos, Portugal.

The paper, published in the academic journal 'European Psychiatry', explains that the diagnosis of fugue in psychiatry derives from the Latin word for flight-- fugere. Dissociative fugue is an extremely rare psychological condition - the sufferer suddenly and without warning travels far from home, completely unable to recall their past.

These episodes are usually linked, explain Santos and Gago, with severe stress or trauma, such as disasters, losses of loved ones or intolerable burdens at work or home. The amnesia appears completely genuine, with patients displaying no conscious understanding of the psychological reason for the flight. This is usually accompanied by muddles over personal identity and sometimes even complete assumption of a new self.

Santos and Gago report that the journeying associated with 'Dissociative Fugue' can last for several months. Some patients travel thousands of miles from home while in this state.

Another recent study entitled 'Dissociative memory impairments and immigration' also published in 'European Psychiatry' in 2010, by Dr A. Staniloiu, Dr S. Borsutzky and Dr H.J. Markowitsch, suggest there is even a possible link between this kind of psychological problem and immigration.

The authors from the University of Bielefeld, Germany, argue that stressful experiences arising during migration could precipitate these symptoms, though a delayed onset at times occurs reflecting an 'incubation' effect.

Another recent study suggests an effective treatment for 'Dissociative Fugue' which appears to have fallen out of favour recently, which might explain why it may not have been used in more current cases.

The case study entitled 'Amytal interview using intravenous lorazepam in a patient with dissociative fugue', reports a middle-aged white female picked up by emergency medical services in the USA, who could not remember her name, address, and did not know the name of the city.

Lorazepam (a sedative drug a bit like Valium) was given intravenously by the psychiatrist. Although relaxed and sleepy the patient was kept awake by asking her to restate the name of her present in-patient psychiatrist, whom she had become close to. She was led back in fantasy to the gas station where she was picked up and was requested to identify it. Once she successfully named a location from her personal history, she was led to give her name, hometown, birthday, social security number, employment, motherhood and marital status.

The investigation, published in the journal 'General Hospital Psychiatry' in 2006, reports that after she awoke the patient described past and recent sexual assaults. The recent rape was about 10 days before hospitalization. A final diagnosis of Dissociative Fugue was made, and the patient was discharged to outpatient follow-up and the Victims of Violent Crime clinic.

The authors of this paper, Dr Sunday Ilechukwu, from the Ann Arbor Health Care System and Dr Thomas Henry, then at Wayne State University, USA, argue that procedures like this provide the patient with an opportunity for the recall and review of recent emotional crisis, linkage to past trauma and provision of context to current experience.

The authors contend that the simple but critical process of naming her identity under sedation, probably helped her come to terms with the precipitating conflict.
The authors also argue care needs to be taken to minimize the risk of introducing false or distorted memories. The use of video-recorded feedback may also help consolidate gains made during the interview.

The authors conclude that the so-called 'sodium amobarbital' interviews have been in use for about 70 years and refers to the use of an older barbiturate type drug, could be brought back into modern psychiatric practice. The study suggests that such pharmacological-facilitated interviews continue to be a useful procedure with such cases, but that a safer more modern drug, such as lorazepam, can be used as an alternative.

But why should trauma lead some people to forget even who they are? Another study entitled 'A case of persistent retrograde amnesia following a dissociative fugue: Neuropsychological and neurofunctional underpinnings of loss of autobiographical memory and self-awareness', argues that, since memories can be vivid, threatening and painful, they may be removed from consciousness as a way of protecting the self-concept.

The study published in the journal 'Neuropsychologia', found reduced neural activity within the brain network producing autobiographical memory retrieval. The authors based at Ludwig-Maximilians-University, Munich, Germany, posit a protective defence mechanism caused by neuronal inhibition that serves to prevent an overﬂow of intensive aversive emotions.

The authors suggest that visual imagery plays a central role in the recall of autobiographical memories. Defects in the way the brain visually processes memory which might help explain puzzling phenomena such as Dissociative Fugue.

Their patient regained only three remote and strongly negative childhood memories dating from the time before the dissociative fugue. All were highly negative, vivid and fragmented episodes comparable to frozen images, e.g. of the cofﬁn at his grandfather's funeral.

It must surely be one of the most disturbing experiences of all, not to recall anything of our past except alarming fragments. Psychiatric investigation of this kind of suffering is helping to reveal how the normal sense of personal identity is achieved. Visual aspects of memory may be more important than we previously realised. The fact that it can be lost suggests we shouldn't take it for granted.

Trying to uncover who 'Robert' really is, could also help us find ourselves.]]>Do Offenders, as in the Rolf Harris Case, Sentence Their Own Families, and Their Victims, for Life?tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2014:/theblog//3.55573682014-07-04T06:07:56-04:002014-09-03T05:59:05-04:00Dr Peter Bruggenhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-peter-bruggen/
What goes on inside a household when someone at their centre is guilty of child, and other, sex crimes, could explain how these particular criminals lead such an incredible double-life. This might account for these astoundingly long criminal careers, in what is widely regarded as one of the worse crimes of all, because children are the most innocent of victims.

Laurence Miller, a Florida psychologist, has published an investigation in 2013 into the different types of paedophile; 'Sexual Offenses against children: Patterns and Motives'. His categorisation could suggest families or relatives are sometimes even colluding in some way, or possibly are victims themselves. At the very least, they can appear in severe denial over the perpetrator in their midst.

He points out, in his study published in the academic journal, 'Aggression and Violent Behaviour', that the 'situational' child molester abuses children as targets of opportunity, particularly if other sexual prospects are unavailable. They therefore tend to also target the elderly, disabled and any other kind of available victim, provided by circumstance.

This is in contrast to the 'preferential' child molester, who in the seductive sub-type, grooms young victims with gifts and attention. He rationalises a 'special relationship'. The 'fixated' sub-type, within the 'preferential' category, is a bit of a child himself - emotionally immature and socially inept.

The most violent and dangerous type is the 'sadistic' paedophile, who enjoys inflicting pain, fear and horror. To heighten the torment, they may even tell the child victim that their parents hate them, and ordered this retribution.

Laurence Miller contends that many child molesters seem to deploy primitive child-like 'defence mechanisms' such as dissociation - 'I didn't know what I was doing' - or denial - 'they're not really hurt, they seemed fine at the time'. Another classic psychological inner defence is 'projective identification', in which one's own unacceptable feelings are projected onto the victim; so it's the child who was viewed as acting seductively.

It's possible that some families also deploy such defence mechanisms in order to reconcile themselves to the paedophile in their midst. Some paedophiles either manipulatively encourage this process, or it spreads naturally through a close-knit group, as people under stress often need such defences in order to cope.

These powerful psychological mechanisms may explain why some paedophiles don't get caught for so long.

Laurence Miller comments that few family members will actively collude with blatant criminal sexual behavior on the part of their husband, brother, father, or son who may now be facing prosecution. However families will rationalize the perpetrator's behavior partly because they have a lot to lose if the perpetrator is convicted (home, finances, family reputation, etc.).

Sometimes, Laurence Miller observes, an interesting "flip" occurs when families, who have been rallying on the side of their loved one for some time, are now faced with mounting evidence against him, and abruptly switch to loathing and rejection, partly against the perpetrator, but also partly out of self-denigration for "letting myself be fooled for all these years."

Nevertheless, Laurence Miller points out, many family members continue to support long after the nature and scope of the offenses has been made clear. Parents are more likely to remain supportive than spouses or children.

Laurence Miller quotes an example of a news story in 2009 of New York's then oldest registered sex offender, who had his 100th birthday in a correctional facility, while serving a ten year sentence for sexually assaulting two sisters aged 4 and 7. This perpetrator appeared to have used his grandfatherly charm to entrap young victims for over 60 years.

Garry Walter and Saby Pridmore, psychiatrists from the University of Sydney and University of Tasmania, have published in 2012 a study of suicides across the world in publicly exposed paedophiles, entitled 'Suicide and the Publicly Exposed Pedophile'.

Their examples, published in 'The Malaysian Journal of Medical Science', include former Liberal MP and Secretary of State to the Colonies, a 1st Viscount, who killed himself aged 59 in 1922, following publicity over the raping of a 12 year-old boy. But he had been a sexual predator for years previously.

Another example they report is of a famous US paediatrician who shot himself in 2011 aged 71, one day after a class action sexual abuse and malpractice law suit was filed against him, charging that he had performed unnecessary genital examinations on 40 boys. He was also a number one New York Times Bestselling Book author.

Other illustrations they quote include a 56 year old man who had been Texas District Attorney for more than 20 years, who shot himself as a SWAT team entered his home following an investigation by an anti-paedophile group, which had arranged for actors to pretend to be under-aged children making contact with him.

Twenty incidents of suicide in publicly exposed paedophiles were identified from eight countries, with the average age of offenders being Fifty-Three years. These also include a United States Prosecutor, as well as a UK author and academic emigrant to Canada with a PhD in neuroscience.

Of course we never really know why a person who commits suicide does it. But these cases illustrate how really serious family wrecking criminals, often have built socially very respectable careers, just as the 'successful' Rolf Harris.

In four of these cases, Garry Walter and Saby Pridmore explain, the evidence suggests they had been perpetrating sex abuse on children in the order of 30 years, and in another four cases for at least 15 years; some were married with families.

Donald Campbell, a psychoanalyst based in London, recently published a paper entitled 'Doubt in the psychoanalysis of a paedophile', where he argues that issues of disbelief, particularly the ability of such perpetrators to create doubt in the minds of those around them, might be a fundamental modus operandi.

Donald Campbell, Past President of the British Psychoanalytical Society, refers to a kind of 'sadistic' doubt, in his paper published in the June 2014 issue of 'The International Journal of Psychoanalysis', where the sex abuser appears to derive sexual gratification from the sewing of seeds of incredulity all around him.

Perhaps uniquely more than in any other crime, at the heart of sex offences, is doubt. This renders the crime particularly psychologically damaging. Uncertainty is planted in the minds of the victim, and of those close to the victim, and the perpetrator, over exactly what happened.

It may be the ability to make people distrust even themselves, is a uniquely manipulative skill of abusers. Grasping this strategy could halt these immoral careers much earlier, as they seem to be some of the longest in criminal history.

A court conviction, followed by sentencing, normally ends the ambiguity for the public, over what happened, in a sex crime.

But for the families of perpetrators, as well as the victims, the hesitation and uncertainty over who someone like Rolf Harris really is, can be a life sentence.]]>Jimmy Savile - Do the Latest Revelations Change the Diagnosis?tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2014:/theblog//3.55366612014-06-27T09:12:36-04:002014-08-27T05:59:06-04:00Dr Peter Bruggenhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-peter-bruggen/
Trying to understand sexual predators is beset with problems - the research is problematic - we still don't even know the true prevalence for these kinds of disorders, behaviours or fantasies.

Anil Aggrawal, a Professor of Forensic Medicine at Maulana Azad Medical College in New Delhi, published in 2009 an academic review entitled 'A new classiﬁcation of necrophilia' in the 'Journal of Forensic and Legal Medicine'.

Professor Anil Aggrawal writes of the past, when bodies were transported across the sea for long journeys or extended periods, because someone had died abroad and had to be returned home for the funeral, that sailors on board such ships were subject to accusations of necrophilia.

Professor Aggrawal describes the combination of loneliness, access and no witnesses, all being crucial factors. Jimmy Savile has been characterised as isolated and targeting the vulnerable who were less able to complain.

Professor Aggrawal also details how it's the fact the dead cannot resist, reject or refuse - cannot complain or talk back or act as witnesses - may also be factors in why some sexual predators gravitate towards this perversion - and these circumstances are also appear in-keeping with what is emerging about Jimmy Savile's grossly disordered behaviour.

Another particularly disturbing aspect of this case, in relation to Jimmy Savile, which Professor Aggrawal highlights in his review, is the proposition that in some cases (by no means all) the very choice of profession where contact with the dead is facilitated, such as mortuary attendant or grave digger, reflects a necrophiliac need for unhindered access to dead bodies.

Jimmy Savile stalked the corridors of hospitals, in various capacities, also including volunteer hospital porter (for example), and also appeared unable to form long lasting or normal relationships.

According to the classification system of necrophilia that Professor Aggrawal outlines in his review, such a case might be termed an 'opportunistic necrophile', which means a kind of sexual predator who is content to have sex with the living usually, but when the opportunity arises will have intercourse with the dead.

This is in contrast to when a perpetrator can only have sex with dead bodies. In this kind of case, stealing corpses from mortuaries is often resorted to.

Finally at a far end of the spectrum is homicidal necrophilia, where the perverse drive to have sex with the dead is so strong, that it's taken to the extreme of killing people in order to have intercourse with their bodies.

Many serial killers, Professor Aggrawal points out, appear to be homicidal necrophiliacs. For example Jeffrey Dahmer (1960-1994) seems to fall into this category. He became aroused by just pieces of the bodies of his victims, and he was also similarly affected by dead animals.

But if other forms of this perversion can be understood as part of a spectrum, which includes sexual predators of the type that the Jimmy Savile case represents, then necrophilia can be understood as an inevitable outcome of a number of factors, including access, isolation, the need for victims who are not going to report or complain, and disturbed sexual drives.

If this drive was so relentless, as to even take Savile to the point of interfering with the dead, then how was it such a disturbed individual could be allowed to skulk hospitals, and other care institutions, up and down the country, for so long undetected.

This is particularly apposite in the case of his senior position at Broadmoor Hospital, which would most likely have housed the kind of sexual predator which Jimmy Savile was.

We don't know if specialists there raised concerns about Savile, but we do know that many doctors and nurses feel not listened to by senior management in the NHS. Also these parts of the NHS are 'Cinderella' services, in the sense that they do not receive the kind of funding or attention that other areas of health care attract. Celebrity endorsement is vital in our fame obsessed culture if serious problems such as mental health are to attract much needed attention, yet most celebrities would shun a place like Broadmoor.

Perhaps when sections of our society are neglected, chronically underfunded and so become desperate for any attention at all, they become particularly vulnerable to being targeted and abused by the Machiavellian and exploitative. The organisations are almost behaving like the very vulnerable victims he picked on.

But we all need to take a long hard look at ourselves at what went so wrong in the case of Jimmy Savile, because it was not just endemically poor and neglectful NHS management, which has been exposed yet again by this case, as woefully failing to look after the most vulnerable in our society.

There is more video footage of Jimmy Savie 'walking the shop floor' in terms of being physically present in wards and corridors of hospitals, than you might ever amass of chief executives of such institutions. Those who run the NHS remain notorious for hiding in their offices, often as far away from the patients as possible. This is part of the failing that allowed Jimmy Savile and other NHS scandals to happen and to continue to happen.

But it is our celebrity obsession which is also partly to blame - such that no one sought to pose the question of how come someone with no more qualifications than being a DJ could be appointed to the very top of specialist Hospitals.

When will we learn that celebrity is not a certification, nor a qualification?]]>As Andy Murray Appoints Amélie Mauresmo His New Trainer - Can a Woman Coach a Man?tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2014:/theblog//3.54842062014-06-11T10:31:26-04:002014-08-11T05:59:05-04:00Dr Peter Bruggenhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-peter-bruggen/
Objections include the fact women are not allowed in the male changing rooms, so Mauresmo's ability to access Andy during tournaments, may be more constrained.

Male tennis players revealed their disdain for the women's game by questioning whether men's tournaments are much more demanding. Could even a past world number 1, and winner of two women's Grand Slam tournaments (such as Amélie Mauresmo), advise male players?

Others have speculated that psychology may be involved in a decision to hire a woman, given it was another supposedly dominant female - Andy Murray's mother - Judy - who has been so influentially steering his career from an early age.

But then again, how will two women, used to prevailing, battle with each other, when differences arise?

Yet behind all the doubts and speculation, appears to be deep hostility in the very macho world of sports, to the proposition of female coaches at the most senior level.

The absence of women on the touch line is notable in most athletic competitions, outside of female only sports. It seems OK for men to coach women, but it looks like many don't think it's possible for women to train men?

Laura Burton, John Borland and Stephanie Mazerolle from the University of Connecticut and Springﬁeld College, United States, recently surveyed female US athletic trainers at elite college level, to examine this question. Within Division I intercollegiate athletics, the authors report that women hold 47% of assistant athletic trainer positions, yet occupy only 18.8% of head athletic trainer positions.

The study entitled ''They cannot seem to get past the gender issue: Experiences of young female athletic trainers in NCAA Division I intercollegiate athletics", also reports data that in 2010, the percentage of women holding the head athletic trainer position was 18.8%, a mere 2.7% increase from 1996.

Enormous chauvinism against female coaches was uncovered by the study, including the common prejudice that some women only go into athletics training to gain an intimate relationship with attractive male sports stars. One female athletic trainer working full-time with baseball, protested to the researchers; 'I'm not there to just sleep with the athletes or anything like that'.

Another female trainer complained to the researchers about the athletes she trained, ''Any time they want to criticize me, I am either compared to a 'girlfriend' or a 'mom'! They cannot seem to get past the gender issue.''

A key finding from this study, published in the academic journal 'Sport Management Review', is that the stereotype of women as more nurturing, caring and sympathetic, seems to particularly count against female coaches. They are perceived as not being tough enough when the male athlete basically needed a kick, and would benefit from harbouring some fear of their trainer. This view seems to arise from the 'Alex Ferguson' school of sport psychology.

Ivan Lendl, Andy Murray's former coach, sports a famously intimidating persona, introducing 'power tennis' to the game, when he was rising to the top as a player. It's difficult to think of a more manly figure in the whole world of tennis. Perhaps it's particularly apposite that the Scot's complaint of the American is quoted in the press as "you can't just be pushed extremely hard every single day".

But the appointment of a woman trainer could be particularly canny precisely at a moment when the male game is dominated by such brutal hitters as Djokovic and Nadal.

Women historically have adapted to facing adversaries of superior physical strength by deploying thoughtfulness, patience and calculation, as winning strategies. It may therefore be precisely the feminine emotional intelligence touch, that Andy needs as a key secret weapon, if he is to overpower such domineering opponents.

It therefore may be no coincidence that Amélie Mauresmo joins team Murray just after the French Open at Roland Garrios, when Andy was blown off the court by a forceful Nadal, losing in straight sets.

Ross Lorimer and Sophia Jowett, sports scientists from the University of Abertay, Dundee, and Loughborough University, have recently published a study contending that whether a coach is a man or a woman can be important. A neglected issue in elite athletic success might be the coach - athlete relationship. In particular the ability of the coach and athlete to understand each other emphasises the essential role of empathic accuracy - how accurately one can perceive the other's thoughts and feelings.

Their study entitled 'The inﬂuence of role and gender in the empathic accuracy of coaches and athletes', investigated the empathic accuracy of ﬁfty-six coach-athlete dyads using actual recordings of training sessions. The investigation published in the academic journal 'Psychology of Sport and Exercise', found that female coaches were more accurate than male coaches in grasping the thoughts and feelings of the athletes they were training.

An intriguing further finding (with some possible implications for Jenny Murray and Amélie Mauresmo's future relationship), was that the least empathic accuracy in a relationship occurred when female athletes were working with female coaches.

Ross Lorimer and Sophia Jowett question why some particular combinations of coach and athlete work well, speculating a particularly deep intense relationship develops as bonding occurs during a succession of high-stakes contests. They point to the similarities with the traditional parental-role in caring and nurturing children. In various ways coaches ultimately unseat parents as central characters in athletes' lives.

Could this appointment of Amélie Mauresmo therefore represent something much deeper in the psyche of someone like Andy Murray?

Loughborough University Sports Psychologist Sophia Jowett commented on the specific issue of why Andy Murray has chosen a female coach: 'The motivation between selecting a female coach is an interesting one and only Andy can answer this question. What our research has shown is that the coach-athlete relationship (like any type of relationship) evolves/changes. In terms of coaching, the relationship is very instructional in the beginning, and very supportive in the middle/end. What I would imagine Andy requires at this stage of his career is someone who is wholly supportive and believes in his abilities and acts as a "mirror" that reflects errors, weaknesses and shortcomings... but also strengths, abilities and powers. It is the looking glass self phenomenon, someone that validates him... and helps him overcome his demons. His new coach may be the person that he needs to overcome obstacles by supporting, energising and motivating him'.

Many have puzzled as to why Murray has abandoned Lendl right now, given that relationship appeared to take the tennis ace to new heights. Might it be that if the central relationship in his life was always with his mother, rather than his father, that an athlete was always going to struggle with such a masculine coach as Ivan Lendl?

One new review entitled, 'William Shakespeare as Psychotherapist', suggests that this canon of work could even teach us how better to understand ourselves.

Recently published in the 'International Journal of Applied Psychoanalytic Studies', the investigation suggests that, as there was no counselling available during Shakespeare's time, so in this especially troubled era, these plays may have provided a kind of shared experience for the audience, which could be the equivalent of modern psychotherapy.

The author of the study, Paul Coombe, a psychotherapist who worked in London, but who is now based in Australia, argues that Shakespeare's Globe Theatre spectators endured a great deal suffering, love and loss. The plague, threat of sentence of death or imprisonment, public executions, massive neonatal mortality rate and wars, all meant life was especially precarious at that time. Henry VIII came to the throne of England in 1509, and some 80,000 people may have died on the gallows during his reign.

Modern stories, films and plays may also serve to distract us in troubled times, but Shakespeare dug deeper, and helped his audience confront their own unconscious.

Psychoanalysts, including Sigmund Freud himself, have interpreted a great deal of hidden meaning and deep insight into the human condition in Shakespeare's plays. For example, some psychoanalysts see special significance in the title of Hamlet, written in approximately 1601, given Shakespeare's own son, named Hamnet, died in 1596.

At the heart of Shakespeare's plays appear conflicts and torments that the central characters declare publicly. In particular his tragedies seem to pose a key question as to how much each of us is doomed to follow a destiny etched in our personality, rather than freely to choose to reverse our fate.

Coombe contends that the Bard understood how flawed our characters could be. In the tragedies people move inexorably in one direction, identifying with just a single passion.

Coombe reports that Shakespeare himself seems to develop his understanding of conflict: so that in his earlier plays tension occurs between characters or groups, while in later works, the key intricacy becomes internal conﬂict within the hero. Endings are contrived so that the audience is struck by the tragic losses, because the hero contributes profoundly to his own downfall.

Coombe contends that this kind of perspective provided opportunities for the public of the time to reﬂect upon the relevance to their own lives. Coombe also quotes Harold Bloom and Frank Kermode, eminent Professors of Humanities and English in the US and the UK, who suggest that there is a sense Shakespeare invents the modern human. His characters over hear themselves, and reflect on their own thoughts. Perhaps the way we can perceive and think about ourselves today as autonomous individuals, first arrives with Shakespeare. His contribution maybe even paves the way for introspection and psychotherapy.

Perhaps the acid test as to whether Shakespeare can really counsel was when he was performed at Broadmoor - a maximum security special hospital for those with severe mental illnesses, who have committed serious crimes, such as homicides.

The late Murray Cox, an eminent psychotherapist, introduced Shakespeare to Broadmoor, ensuring that dangerous emotions of desire, envy, despair, insanity, homicide and suicide, as portrayed in plays such as Hamlet, and Romeo and Juliet, were performed before an audience which included some who had murdered, and perpetrated other destructive acts.

The plays were put on with no financial benefit, by professional Shakespearean companies, and performances were followed by a 'therapeutic trialogue' between actors, patients and clinicians. This is all described in an editorial entitled, 'Psychotherapy, religion and drama: Dr Murray Cox and his legacy for offender patients', published in 2007 in the academic journal, 'Criminal Behaviour and Mental Health', by Harvey Gordon (a psychiatrist), Mark Rylance (an eminent Shakespearian actor) and Geoffrey Rowell (a bishop).

But beyond being a kind of psychotherapist before the profession was even invented, is it also possible that Shakespeare might have been an early neuroscientist?

The authors of the study, James Keidel, Philip Davis, Victorina Gonzalez-Diaz, Clara Martin and Guillaume Thierry, argue that Shakespeare's grammatical exploration forces his audience's brains to take a more active role in grasping the meaning of the dialogue.

The investigation from Bangor University, Liverpool Moore University and Pompeu Fabra University, Barcelona, was partly inspired by the authors' observation that beyond Shakespeare's formidable prowess at 'illustrating the inner life of his characters', through the way he expresses their thoughts, his particular use of language might also illustrate a special ability to get inside the audience's mind.

This study, recently published in the academic journal 'Cortex', investigated how Shakespeare exploits linguistic expectations, such as how well-crafted poetry generates its effects by lulling readers into a false sense of security. Rhythm and rhyme feed fundamental needs for monotony, symmetry and surprise. A feeling of knowing what is coming next, only for these expectations to be dashed with an unexpected word or phrase.

An example of this word play is Shakespeare's frequent use of 'functional shift' - the use of an appropriate word in an inappropriate role. For instance, when describing to Othello the invented affair between Cassio and Desdemona, Iago states: "O, tis the spite of hell... to lip a wanton in a secure couch, and to suppose her chaste". This contains two examples of 'functional shift': (a) the use of the noun 'lip' as a verb meaning to kiss/copulate; and (b) the use of the adjective 'wanton' as a noun to represent Desdemona.

Their finding of increased brain activity beyond traditional brain language processing areas by Shakespeare's literary technique, leads the authors to conclude that lines such as,"To lip a wanton in a secure couch" may be working at two levels.

Iago uses vivid language to ferment the Moor's anger. But Shakespeare also neurologically disturbs the audience, by violating linguistic expectations.

From the standpoint of the listener, the 'Functional Shift' is correct yet wrong. The shifted word fits the overall meaning of the sentence, but its 'syntactic illegality' jars. The authors of the brain scanning research found this effect leads to widespread increases in cerebral activity, compared to if a more routine phrase was used.

As a result, the new study concludes that Shakespeare achieves a kind of 'neurological tempest'.]]>